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3
grandfather), and—in some respects—has obviously filled, and greatly surpassed,
the guru-like role played by this figure.
Sathya Sai Baba’s other reference at the head of this section, that to ‘Apast-
hamba Suthra’, is also perhaps simply a reflection of his ancestry. Babb (1986:163)
quotes Sathya Sai Baba’s official biographer Kasturi as interpreting this statement
to mean ‘the spiritual school of Sage Apastamba’, and notes that: ‘Apastamba is the
putative author of an important body of dharmashāstra’. Swallow (1982:128) in-
terprets this reference in a similar manner to Babb, and offers no additional hy-
potheses (i.e. other than the implication that Sathya Sai Baba might be claiming
Brahmin status) as to the reason for it. But, as R.N. Dandekar (1979:349), writes:
The sūtra is an aphoristic statement - at once brief, unequivocal, comprehensive,
generally valid, and expressive of the essential point. Presumably, the sūtras were
originally intended to serve as lecture-notes for the teachers of the various schools.
Smriti Srinivas (1999b:93) does pick up on this, but sees Sathya Sai Baba’s state-
ment as ‘a reference to the texts called the Brahma Sutras’. These, however, are
traditionally attributed to a sage by the name of Bādarāyaṇa—not to Āpastamba.
Babb’s above-cited suggestion is also wide of the mark, for Dandekar (1979:356)
writes that ‘the Dharmasastras …represent a later stage in the evolution of the lit-
erature on Dharma... than the Dharmasūtras’, and there are, in any case, other
types of sūtra attributed to Āpastamba also
21
.
From early times, these works became the exclusive province of Brahmins, and
sūtra, as much as gotra, became a common genealogical referent
22
. It thus carries
no implication of Sathya Sai Baba’s being a Brahmin, and there is no evidence that
any who might have heard Sathya Sai Baba’s claim considered him to be a Brah-
min as a consequence. Indeed, so far as his (later) divine persona, “the avatar”, is
concerned, there is no reason why this should have been necessary, for most of the
traditional (and modern) “avatars” are of non-Brahmin extraction
23
.
21
NB In fact, David Knipe points out that today, Brahmin students of the Āpastamba-sūtra only
study the ‘Srauta Sūtra and a Gṛhya Sūtra as part of the corpus required for memorization and ex-
amination. The Dharma Suutras and Dharma Saastras are not part of the oral tradition but are read
later on as written texts’ (personal communication to me, 22 Oct 2004). Knipe refers for more de-
tail to his “Becoming a Veda in the Godavari Delta,” in Festschrift for Frits Staal [Leiden 1997]).
22
David Knipe (personal communication, 22 Oct 2004).
23
NB Sathya Sai Baba (as avatar) is more of a ‘prophet’ and/or a ‘magician’, than a ‘priest’—Weber
(1964:46) writes: ‘It is no accident that almost no prophets have emerged from the priestly class. As
a rule, the Indian teachers of salvation were not Brahmins... The priest... dispenses salvation by vir-
tue of his office. Even in cases in which personal charisma may be involved, it is the hierarchical of-
fice that confers legitimate authority upon the priest as a member of a corporate enterprise of salva-
tion. But the prophet, like the magician, exerts his power simply by virtue of his personal gifts’.
1
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It is clear, then, that Sathya Sai Baba is no more claiming the status of a Brah-
min than any other member of the gotra, or affiliate of the sūtra, to which he re-
fers—it seems fair to assume that he is simply reciting his lineage. There is noth-
ing particularly unusual about such a recitation, for Kane (1974:2.482) writes that
‘At the time of performing one’s daily saṁdhyā prayer, one has to repeat even in
modern times one’s gotra and pravara, the Vedaśākhā and sūtra which one stud-
ies’. Vedaśākhā refers to the portion of the Veda which one’s family (-priest) stud-
ies, and pravara refers to the names of prominent rishis of one’s gotra, and this
last fact perhaps gives us a clue as to the context of Sathya Sai Baba’s reference (at
the beginning of this section) to ‘Venkavadhoota’ —who Kasturi cites Sathya Sai
Baba’s father as claiming to have been their family’s ‘great ancestral sage who was
looked upon as a Guru by hundreds of villages around’
24
. Interestingly, Sai devo-
tee Sathya Sai Shree Lakshmi (2005:65) notes that Venkavadhoota was famed for
his miracles, and is posthumously worshipped by many to this day as an avatar. In
more senses than one, Sathya Sai Baba’s current role “runs in his family”.
Why Sathya Sai Baba should have chosen to publicly recite his lineage at this
juncture is unclear. Considered from the point of view of his being a (prospective)
avatar it is perhaps not odd that his lineage should be recited, for the accounts of
the major traditional avatars Rāma and Kṛṣṇa often begin with, or at least include,
such lineages. So, for that matter, do those of Jesus and Buddha—the recapitula-
tion of lineage perhaps being a universally important religious act. But we need
not go so far as this—a devotee who, as it so happens, belongs to the same gotra
and sūtra as Sathya Sai Baba, recollects his own experiences in this connection:
I was initiated into Gayathri Japa Mantra, during the sacred thread ceremony. The
priest also taught me another mantra, which serves as an introduction of ourselves
while paying obeisance to elders. It runs as under:
“Abhivaadhaye, Aangeerasa, Bharhasspathaya
Bharadwaja, Thraya Risheya, Pravaraanyutha
Aapsthamba [sic] Suthra, Bharadwaja Gothraha
Yadhu saaka adhyayet, Srinivasa Sharma naama, Aham Asmibhoho”
Here, I, Srinivasan Sharma, identify myself before the elders to whom I am offering
my Pranams, by tracing the lineage from and my origin to the Rishi Bharadwaj.
25
This portion of the saṁdhyā rite (following precisely the formula described by
Kane above) evidently also serves as formal introduction of oneself to one’s elders.
24
Sathyam-1 (5) 38
25
http://saibaba.ws/teachings/hrudayanivasi/hrudayanivasi_samarppanam.htm [10-7-2007]